As we move into the future, processes like customization, including location-based marketing, become more important than ever. That’s because customers expect their experience to be customized now. In this article, we will be looking at the thinking behind location-based marketing, the effectiveness of the strategy and where things may go in the future. When used correctly, location-based marketing can increase your conversions by several hundred percent.
What is Location-Based Marketing?
Location-based marketing is the process of customizing a marketing message based upon the context of the user receiving it. The advertiser typically looks at audience data relating to that location and then customizes their marketing efforts to be more visible or more appealing to the people in that area. The goal is to bring together physical and digital data and context in order to provide actionable content that is intended to be used immediately. When location-based marketing is used properly, it can multiply response times and improve not only conversion rates, but also actions related to conversion such as signing up for an email list or accepting push notifications.
How Location-Based Marketing Works
Location-based marketing messages are usually delivered through text messages on a user’s mobile device. There are couple of reasons why this is the case. First, people tend to check messages that they get on their mobile device right away and therefore can take action when they receive the message. Second, if someone is checking their mobile device and they are already out of the house, there is a much greater chance they will take advantage of some kind of incentive or discount that they receive as an alert on their device.
Location-based marketing works by first having the user download a mobile app, and then accepting the apps request to use their current location. The primary technology driving the alerts that they get is known as geofencing. Geofencing can allow advertisers to send alerts automatically whenever a user is within a certain predefined geographic boundary.
Why it isn’t Proximity Marketing
A lot of people use the term location-based marketing interchangeably with proximity marketing. While it is true that both of these marketing strategies use a customer’s location to determine if an alert is sent, the difference between these two is how the location is determined. Proximity marketing usually uses beacon technology and is able to determine location much more accurately.
LBM Privacy Concerns
The aforementioned method of determining someone’s location with proximity marketing is a good segue into our next section, which deals with privacy concerns around proximity marketing and location-based marketing. Many customers are understandably skeptical when it comes to trusting that a business will use their location responsibly after they have opted in to marketing messages. That’s why many businesses that use location-based marketing are allowing the user to set the parameters of the marketing campaign. The customer can decide not only whether or not they want push notifications in the first place, but also where messages are sent – with email being an alternative to SMS – as well as how frequently they will be getting marketing messages.
Location-Based Marketing Strategies
There are several ways that a company can use location-based marketing. Usually, how this tool will be used depends upon the type of business you have. For example, a retail store located in downtown will use LBM differently than a company that either has locations scattered around the state, or provide some kind of service that comes to you such as plumbing or security system installation.
Some of the strategies that businesses are using include hosting a local event and then getting attendees at that event to subscribe to the push notifications that will later become the basis of their local marketing strategy. You can also use location tags on social media profiles and pictures, hashtags that are designed and promoted to a local community, optimizing your website for local keywords and using geo-targeting whenever you run an ad campaign on Google, Facebook or other advertising options that incorporate geo-targeting.
Conclusion
Location-based marketing can be a powerful tool that will allow you to connect better with your customers and get a bigger response from your marketing campaigns as long as you use it responsibly.
